Amazon And University Of Texas Establish New Science Hub

Amazon is teaming up with the University of Texas at Austin to launch a new science and engineering research partnership that aims to advance discoveries in areas such as video streaming, search and information retrieval, and robotics.

The UT Austin-Amazon Science Hub is the latest in a series of science hubs that the tech giant has set up with major research universities or scientific organizations. In each case the focus is on facilitating collaborations between academia and the tech industry that will stimulate discoveries and applications in science and engineering. The hubs also help prepare young scientists and engineers for careers in the high tech sector.

Other Amazon-sponsored science hubs have been established previously at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, UCLA. the University of Washington, and the Max Plank Society.

Through the new partnership, which is initially for five years, Amazon plans to fund research projects and doctoral student fellowships along with various activities and events to build interdisciplinary innovation. Although the hub will be hosted in UT Austin’s Cockrell School of Engineering, researchers and students in a range of other disciplines will be involved.

Four research areas have been identified as initial priorities: machine learning, image and video processing, robotics, and networking and communications.

“We are striving to establish even more collaborations with leading companies and organizations in order to bring together more talented people, produce higher-impact research, and help our students reach their greatest ambitions. The launch of the new hub with Amazon is the latest success story in this effort,” said University of Texas Austin President Jay Hartzell in the university’s announcement of the hub. “I am eager to see the discoveries that our researchers and students will create from this collaboration, and how those discoveries will change the world.”

As is the case with other Amazon science hubs, the University of Texas and Amazon have an extensive history of partnerships and collaborative work, including the Amazon Scholars Program as well as faculty who have received prior grant support through the company. According to the University’s announcement, its expertise in visual neuroscience, streaming and social media made it an attractive partner for the new hub. Alan Bovik, the Cockrell Family Endowed Regents Chair in Engineering in the Chandra Family Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, will serve as the hub’s director.

“Amazon is thrilled to establish a university hub at UT Austin,” said BA Winston, vice president of technology at Prime Video. “For years, our top scientists have been a resource to UT Austin graduate students, collaborating on topics such as developing objective machine learning models to predict perceptual video quality that drive smart compression and multimodal AI models that help ensure highest quality media playback experience at scale.”